The US cable channel HBO wants to continue production of its hit series “The Last of Us” at the beginning of next year. According to Variety, HBO boss Casey Bloys made the announcement during a press conference last week. The actors’ union SAG-AFTRA is currently still on strike in Hollywood, which is why the production start date for the second season of “The Last of Us” is currently a little uncertain. However, if the labor dispute is resolved in the coming weeks, the new episodes of the zombie series will not appear on HBO and its streaming service Max until 2025 at the earliest.
The series adaptation of Naughty Dog’s video game of the same name thrilled HBO’s audience at the beginning of the year and, among other things, had the second best series start of the past decade for HBO after the “Game of Thrones” spin-off “House of the Dragon”. Season one also received an impressive rating of 96 percent positive reviews on the review collection site “Rotten Tomatoes”. It’s no surprise that the end-of-time series with “Star Wars” hero Pedro Pascal (48) and Bella Ramsey (20), known from “Game of Thrones”, in the main roles was already extended by HBO while the first season was broadcast was.
But the aforementioned double strike by screenwriters and actors this year put a stop to the early start of production on season two. Although the authors have now reached an agreement with the powerful studios and, according to co-series creator Craig Mazin (52), the writing work for the sequel to “The Last of Us” is already well advanced, an agreement between the studios and actors is still in place Recently intensive negotiations are still ongoing.
Bloys’ statements can therefore also be understood as a kind of declaration of intent to the fans of the HBO series. As soon as the strike ends, HBO will probably do everything in its power to quickly move forward with production on the show. However, since the lavishly produced first season required 200 days of filming, it will still be a while before viewers can experience the new adventures of Ellie (Ramsey) and Joel (Pascal).
